by Rachel Aaron
He pulled his hand out with a flourish, and then was promptly tackled as Marci rushed to grab the Kosmolabe.
“My beautiful darling!” she cooed, clutching the softball sized, golden orb to her chest. “Mommy missed you so much!”
“Did you find it?”
The shout came from the hall, and then Amelia was suddenly in the doorway, her eyes locked on the shiny ball in Marci’s clutches. “You didn’t tell me it was a Persian Kosmolabe!” she cried. “They’re the best!”
“I know!” Marci said, holding it up for her to see. “Just look at the markings!”
Julius shook his head and turned around, replacing the mirror while he waited for Marci and his sister to finish nerding out. “So what do we do now?” he asked when it was obvious they weren’t going to stop on their own. “We have the Kosmolabe, but Bob wasn’t exactly clear on the next step.”
“Bob’s never clear,” Amelia said without taking her eyes off the Kosmolabe Marci was still cradling in her arms like a kitten. “It’s against his nature. That said, I think the plan from here’s pretty obvious: open portal, go to ruined home realm of dragons, get our own version of seer weapon, come back, beat Estella at her own game, celebrate.”
“Sounds great,” Julius said. “Just two problems. First, how are we going to get a seer weapon when we’re not seers, and second, how do we know this whole trip isn’t playing right into Estella’s hands? I mean, we know she put a chain on you.”
“That she did,” Amelia said. “But it doesn’t matter whether I’m compromised or not, I have to go with you. How do you think you’re getting home if I’m not there to open a portal back, huh?”
Julius sighed. “Good point.”
“It’ll be fine,” Amelia assured him, trotting down the stairs. “I don’t even think seers can influence planes outside the one they’re in. For all we know, my going with you will snap the chain all together and solve the whole problem.”
“And what about the weapon?” Julius asked, following her down.
Amelia shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Bob wouldn’t have set us on this course if it was impossible.”
“I worry you might be giving him a skosh too much credit,” Marci said, carefully carrying the Kosmolabe down the stairs like it was an over-full glass of the most expensive wine on the planet. “No offense to your brother, but Bob seems to be an ask-the-impossible, hope-it-works-out kind of leader.”
“Don’t let his front fool you,” Amelia said. “Bob plays the fool because it suits him, but never forget that he’s the reason Estella’s doing all of this. She had to do something crazy because Bob backed her into a corner she couldn’t get out of any other way. You don’t beat a seer three times your age by being an idiot. Trust me, if he told us about this, it’ll work.”
“No argument there,” Julius said. “But again, are we sure this is Bob’s plan?”
“Pretty sure,” his sister said. “I mean, I don’t feel mind controlled.”
“Would you, though?” Marci asked.
“No idea,” she confessed. “But I haven’t noticed any weird impulses or inexplicable urges. I don’t even want to murder my mother any more than I usually do.”
Marci paled. “You usually want to murder your mother?”
“Have you met Bethesda?” Amelia asked, rolling her eyes. “Murderous rage is the usual reaction. She likes it that way, too. Her motto is: If other dragons don’t want to kill you, you’re not doing it right.”
Julius could only nod at the truth of that, and Marci stopped on the stairs. “Wait,” she said. “If you all hate Bethesda so much, why are we putting our lives on the line to save her again? I mean, I know she’s your mother, but she doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of person who deserves this much loyalty.”
Technically, she was asking that question of both of them, but Marci’s eyes were on Julius. Unfortunately, the only answer he could give her was, “She’s my mother.”
“Who cares about that?” Amelia scoffed. “I’d be helping Estella kill her of my own free will if it didn’t mean I’d end up stuck as the Heartstriker.”
Marci shrugged. “Couldn’t you just say no?”
“I wish,” Amelia said. “Unfortunately, dragon clans aren’t just dysfunctional families. We’re magical pyramids. When Bethesda killed her father, she didn’t just take his lands. She also stole his fire, the magic our clan built up over generations. That’s why she’s such a big deal despite being only a century older than myself. But if Estella cuts the head off the Heartstriker, all that magic will automatically revert to me. If I claim it, I get stuck with the world’s worst job. If I let it drop, the fire of the Heartstrikers will die, and our whole clan becomes easy pickings for our enemies.”
Marci frowned. “I see your problem.”
“Normally I’d say screw it and head out to my favorite tropical plane for a beach party,” Amelia went on. “Alas, the list of family members I don’t want to die has gotten too long to ignore, and then there’s the part where Bob’s made this clan his life’s work. I’ll screw Bethesda over all day long, but I owe Brohomir more than even he knows. I’d take a bullet for Mother myself before I let all of his hard work go to waste.” She paused, thinking that over. “That’s probably the biggest sign I’m not under Estella’s control, actually. I still want Bob to win. I don’t actually know how this chain thing works, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be the case if I was Estella’s puppet. She hates Bethesda with a passion, but Brohomir’s the one she’s really out to beat.”
Julius nodded. He’d had a feeling that was the case ever since he’d witnessed the two seers’ confrontation at the party, and while he was still nervous, his sister’s arguments made a lot of sense. “Let’s try it, then.”
“Obviously,” Amelia said, turning to walk down the final flight of stairs to the living room. “I’m already set up and everything.”
She was. While they’d been in the bathroom digging up the Kosmolabe, Amelia had cleared out the living room, pushing all the furniture, including the couch where Chelsie was sleeping to recover the magic Marci had taken, into the hallway. Now, the whole room was empty save for the floor lamp in the corner and the stuff that couldn’t be moved, like the mantelpiece over the fireplace.
“How big a portal are you planning to make, anyway?” Julius asked, looking around at the impressively large space she’d made.
“Go big or go home,” Amelia replied, holding out her hand for the Kosmolabe. Marci handed it over with a grimace, and the dragon quivered with delight. “You lovely thing,” she cooed, rolling the golden ball lovingly between her hands as she stepped into the center of the room. “Ready?”
Julius blinked. “What, you mean like right now?”
“No time like the present,” his sister replied. “Time moves differently on every plane. If Estella’s going to make her move at the mating flight tomorrow, we need to get started as soon as possible in case our destination is running behind. It’d suck to spend a day getting everything together only to come home and discover we’re a year too late.”
Marci paled. “Will that happen?”
“Won’t know until we get there,” Amelia said, smiling at the Kosmolabe. “Besides, do you know how many centuries I’ve been waiting to try one of these things?”
“I just hope she gives it back,” Marci whispered to Julius as Amelia peered deep into Kosmolabe’s interlocking golden circles.
“I’d settle for getting out of this alive,” Julius whispered back. He didn’t care how easy his sister made it sound. Going into an unknown, ruined dimension to retrieve an ancient dragon weapon that they didn’t understand and might not even recognize was crazy, even for a seer plot. They were in way too deep to turn back now, though, and Bob was counting on them. Julius thought that was a pretty foolish decision on the seer’s part, but he was still going to do his best to hold up his end. At this point, it was all he could do.
“I’m going to wake Chelsie u
p,” he whispered when it was clear Amelia was going to be at this for a while. “If we’re all going, I don’t want her to wake up alone.”
“Too late for that.”
Julius and Marci both jumped, turning around to see Chelsie standing behind them, her face pale and set in a dour scowl.
“Should you be up?” Julius asked when he’d recovered.
“I’ll live,” Chelsie said, nodding at their sister, who was staring into the Kosmolabe like it contained the meaning of life. “Is she making the portal right now?”
“I can still hear you, you know,” Amelia said without looking up. “And yes. I’ve already found it, actually, but it’s pretty far.”
“Does that matter?” Marci asked.
“Only if you want me to do this more than once,” Amelia replied, glancing at them over her shoulder. “You might want to brace. I don’t have enough juice yet to do this properly, so I’m going to cheat and do a rip job, which means things might get a little uncomfortable.”
Julius swallowed. “Uncomfortable how?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Amelia’s magic ripped through the room, and the answer became self-evident. Just standing near his sister was like being surrounded by fire-heated knives. Even Amelia wasn’t immune to it. Her whole body began to smoke as the power built, her dark hair smoldering as little fires began to appear in the crooks of her curls. Then, just when Julius was sure she was about to spontaneously combust, Amelia lashed out and split the world open.
Having seen Chelsie cut through space numerous times now, Julius had thought he knew what to expect. As usual, though, the truth was something else entirely. Chelsie’s cut had been exactly that: an incision through one place to another. Definitely not something you saw every day, but still easy to understand. This, though, this was watching someone punch a hole in reality itself. Just seeing the air tatter and fall away felt wrong on a fundamental level, and as for what lay beyond… Julius couldn’t even wrap his head around it.
On the other side of the giant rip Amelia had made in his living room was black desert lit by a blood-red moon. But while that was comprehensible, if creepy, the feel of the place was utterly and inexplicably wrong. It was like the moment in a forced perspective photograph when you realized the seemingly normal-sized car in the background was actually a toy in the foreground, only instead of the three-dimensional perspective, this trick was happening on the fourth. Everything beyond that hole—the fine black sand, the starless sky, the red moon with its alien craters—looked like a diorama frozen forever in a single moment. Still, even that wouldn’t have been so bad were it not for the black mountain in the distance. The mountain that was moving, despite the impossible stillness.
“What is that?” Marci whispered, her eyes wide. “And what is wrong with it?”
“I’m…not sure, actually,” Amelia said, looking a bit pale herself. “I—”
Her voice cut off like a dropped knife. At first, Julius couldn’t understand why. The landscape on the other side of the portal hadn’t changed. He was wondering if something was wrong with the portal itself when his nose caught the now-familiar scent of sea ice.
After everything that had happened, Julius didn’t even bother trying to figure out more than that. He just grabbed Marci and jumped. And it was this paranoid anticipation that saved their lives as the front door exploded in a blast of dragon magic, sending shards of wood flying all the way to the opposite side of the house.
“Get back!”
The shout came from Chelsie, who suddenly had her sword in her hands, taking up a defensive position in front of Amelia as the last dragon Julius expected to see stepped through the shattered doorway.
“Conrad.”
Chelsie said her brother’s name like a curse, smoke curling from between her clenched teeth, but Conrad didn’t even seem to notice. He just noted her position and stepped to the side, making way for the dragoness who walked in next.
“Right on time,” Estella said, sweeping her ice blue gaze over the room full of dragons. Dragons who should have been attacking her as their enemy, but who weren’t reacting at all. They just stood there, frozen as Estella smiled at them like they were statues in her garden before turning to face Julius. “You again? Why am I not surprised?”
After what he’d seen on Chelsie’s video, Julius’s eyes went straight to her wrist, and the seer laughed with delight. “Finally figured it out, did you?” she asked, raising her bare arm for him to see. “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t waste chains on failures.”
She glanced at the tattered portal, which was still hanging in the air in front of Amelia. “You know, part of me actually wants to let you try. I’d love to see Brohomir’s face when he realizes the underdog he’s invested so much hope and effort in is lost forever in the silent grave of our ancestors. Alas,” she sighed dramatically, “I’m not an idiot who allows loose ends.” She waved her hand. “Kill them.”
Since Conrad was the one who’d blown their door open, he was the one Julius flinched away from, but it was Chelsie, not her brother, who attacked, turning and slashing her Fang at Julius.
Any other day, that would have been it. But Chelsie was far from her peak tonight, and Julius had just spent almost an hour dodging an insanely fast spirit. Alone, either of these factors still wouldn’t have made a difference. Together, though, they gave him just enough of an edge to duck, dragging Marci to the floor half a heartbeat before Chelsie’s Fang sliced over their heads.
“Chelsie!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “What are you doing?”
But he already knew. The dragon standing over him was still his sister, but her face was the face of a stranger when she swung again. This time, though, Julius was ready. He jumped before she even started, rolling himself and Marci across the floor to come up directly beside the tattered portal that was still wavering in the air.
“Such quick little mice,” Estella said. “But you are looking a bit peakish, Bethesda’s Shade.” She turned to the towering dragon beside her. “Conrad, help your sister take care of Brohomir’s pet. Amelia, close the portal.”
Conrad nodded and stepped forward while Amelia lowered her hands. Her scorching magic began to fade from the air at the same time, and the portal faded with it, but it was the motion—the strange, automaton-like movement that was nothing like Amelia’s normal dramatic flair—that finally kicked Julius over the edge. Before that moment, he’d felt like a mouse caught on the chaotic battlefield for a clash of giants. Now, the entire world had narrowed down to a single goal: getting away from Estella. There was no more room for worry or second guesses, no room even for consequences, and with no hesitation to hold him back, Julius moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life.
He didn’t look. He didn’t plan. He didn’t even bother trying to sidestep Conrad’s incoming attack. He simply grabbed Marci around the waist and jumped sideways through what was left of the hole Amelia had ripped in the air.
For a terrifying second, he was sure they hadn’t made it. He could actually see the rips in the air above him closing over, closing them in. Then, like a miracle, they were through, crashing together into the black dust on the other side of the hole in the world. Landing on his back, Julius caught one final glimpse of Estella’s face as her smile faded, and then the portal vanished, sealing him and Marci on the other side.
***
For the first time since she’d returned, Estella felt a stab of real anger. That was not supposed to happen.
“Open it,” she snarled, yanking hard on the chain that bound the Planeswalker’s future. “Now.”
Amelia shuddered as the command hit, but even though Estella’s word should have been absolute, nothing happened. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Estella roared. “I don’t care if you have to burn yourself out, make that portal.”
“I can’t,” Amelia said again, holding up her hands. Her empty hands.
Estella clenched her fists i
n rage, sending a sheet of ice racing over the floor and up the walls. Then, just as quickly, she forced herself to let it go.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. So what if they’d taken the Kosmolabe? The mortal couldn’t use it, and the little whelp dragon was centuries too young for such magic. Even if they did somehow manage to find their way back, they’d never make it in time. Estella knew that much for a fact. She could see the whole of her life spread out before her like a perfect map, and after this turn, neither Brohomir’s pawn nor his surprisingly competent mortal had any part in it ever again.
That thought sent the last of her anger away, and Estella let the ice melt, holding her head high as she marched back to the door. “Leave them,” she ordered. “They’re as dead there as they would be here. We, on the other hand, have a glorious future to create.”
She crooked her finger as she finished, grinning wide as Bethesda’s three strongest children followed her like lambs out to the idling limo that would take them to the airport where Svena was already waiting.
And back in the house, hidden in the shadows, a ghostly glowing cat slipped out of Marci’s forgotten bag and vanished into thin air.
Chapter 18
Julius had never felt so far from home in his life.
He was sitting in an ocean of black dust under a starless sky as flat and matte black as Chelsie’s feathers. The only light came from the resentful red glow of the full, blood-colored moon frozen at the sky’s zenith. There was no wind. There was no movement. There wasn’t even scent. Other than himself and Marci, he couldn’t smell a thing. It was like he’d been dropped into a sensory deprivation chamber the size of a city, and there was no—